Tonight was a good, good night. It was book-choosing time for the Fab Five book club, the night when we plan out the next six months of reading.
We kicked off the evening with some great Thai food from Bangkok Taste. My chicken curry pad thai was incredible, and I still have some left for lunch! At dinner we talked about the personality tests that some have taken at work recently. Apparently none of us are high on woo. That would be Winning Others Over. We are a rather reclusive group of people. Very high on responsibility, not too high on strategic thinking. Hm.
Finally it was time to lay out all the books. The four of us brought approximately 30 books all together, and it was so hard to choose! Eventually we narrowed it down to 6 titles:
1. a novel by Helen Simonson called Major Pettigrew's Last Stand,
2. a book about a couple traveling in France called Narrow Dog to Carcassonne,
3. a book about the state of the American female from 1960 until the present called When Everything Changed,
4. a short story collection by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (my favorite Nigerian author!) entitled The Thing Around Your Neck,
5. a novel by Robert Goolrick by the title of A Reliable Wife,
6. and finally Lit, the most recent memoir by Mary Karr.
We can hardly wait! And we each have a new list of about 15 other titles we hope to read on our own in the meantime. It's a nice thought.
If you like to listen to something on your iPod or whatever while you walk, I recommend the free podcasts from The New Yorker: Fiction. Each episode is a different contemporary author reading a story from the archives of the New Yorker, then a bit of discussion about the story and the story's author. I listened to one about Carson McCullers just before the church book club discussed The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and found it very helpful. NPR's book podcast is also great.
Up next is Shanghai Girls by Lisa See--the Neland Women's Book Club will talk about it June. We also have a planning meeting on June 8. I started Shanghai Girls a couple of days ago, and I'm hooked.
Summer's almost here--happy reading!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Behind Closed Doors
Just finished In the Neighborhood by Peter Lovenheim, in which Lovenheim spends two years developing relationships with some of the people on his street. This might seem like a natural thing to do, but Lovenheim makes it clear that, as a society, we tend to get wrapped up in complicated lives that leave little room for getting to know our neighbors beyond saying hello as we pass on the sidewalk.
While my current neighborhood is pretty close, I can certainly see some similarities. It is easy, especially in the winter, for weeks to pass without seeing my next door neighbors to the west. They are lovely people, and I am blessed to live near them. But we all hibernate a bit, and there are no young kids in their home running back and forth, so we don't see them often enough to know if something has gone very wrong. As Lovenheim points out, this could be easily rectified with some deliberate contact. Having children is a huge bonus for me in getting to know neighbors--the kids get to know each other and the parents follow in the wake. It must be harder when you are single or have two full-time careers.
During the years I spent in Dallas--middle school and high school--in two neighborhoods where people were mainly transplants from other cities, pursuing their careers, we knew next to nothing about the people living behind the fences next door. Our churches, schools, jobs and communities were so divergent, there seemed to be no common threads to grab onto. Of course that's not true--a concerted effort would be sure to find something in common with almost anyone. And for Pete's sake, we shared a lot line if nothing else!
I loved getting to know the interesting and very different neighbors that Lovenheim met. It's time for me to make some time, between books, to find out what interesting and different neighbors I don't yet know on my street.
In one chapter, the author accompanies the mailman through his route. I read part of this to my husband Brian, who is a bit of a professional expert on mail (and a bit of a know-it-all in general, as he would admit). Lovenheim mentioned that the mailman had received very generous tips, including expensive tickets to sports events and season tickets to the theater or philharmonic. Brian said that is against postal regulations--they cannot accept expensive gifts. Since the book was published, this mailman has retired. Let's hope the statute of limitations is short on that issue, since someone is bound to find out now.
The Fab Five Book Club is meeting on Wednesday for it's planning meeting for the next six months. We are ridiculously excited about this, and I would welcome your reading suggestions.
One last piece of advice--if you get mail in your mailbox that is meant for your neighbor, don't give it back to the mailman. Walk it over yourself and see where it takes you!
While my current neighborhood is pretty close, I can certainly see some similarities. It is easy, especially in the winter, for weeks to pass without seeing my next door neighbors to the west. They are lovely people, and I am blessed to live near them. But we all hibernate a bit, and there are no young kids in their home running back and forth, so we don't see them often enough to know if something has gone very wrong. As Lovenheim points out, this could be easily rectified with some deliberate contact. Having children is a huge bonus for me in getting to know neighbors--the kids get to know each other and the parents follow in the wake. It must be harder when you are single or have two full-time careers.
During the years I spent in Dallas--middle school and high school--in two neighborhoods where people were mainly transplants from other cities, pursuing their careers, we knew next to nothing about the people living behind the fences next door. Our churches, schools, jobs and communities were so divergent, there seemed to be no common threads to grab onto. Of course that's not true--a concerted effort would be sure to find something in common with almost anyone. And for Pete's sake, we shared a lot line if nothing else!
I loved getting to know the interesting and very different neighbors that Lovenheim met. It's time for me to make some time, between books, to find out what interesting and different neighbors I don't yet know on my street.
In one chapter, the author accompanies the mailman through his route. I read part of this to my husband Brian, who is a bit of a professional expert on mail (and a bit of a know-it-all in general, as he would admit). Lovenheim mentioned that the mailman had received very generous tips, including expensive tickets to sports events and season tickets to the theater or philharmonic. Brian said that is against postal regulations--they cannot accept expensive gifts. Since the book was published, this mailman has retired. Let's hope the statute of limitations is short on that issue, since someone is bound to find out now.
The Fab Five Book Club is meeting on Wednesday for it's planning meeting for the next six months. We are ridiculously excited about this, and I would welcome your reading suggestions.
One last piece of advice--if you get mail in your mailbox that is meant for your neighbor, don't give it back to the mailman. Walk it over yourself and see where it takes you!
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Lonely Hearts Club Part II
Tonight the Neland Women's Book Club, a book club from my church, met to discuss The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. Thankfully for all of us, it turned out that Rita was leading instead of me. Her research into McCullers's sad and hard life helped us identify more with the author who wrote about sad, hard lives.
We quickly came to agreement on the novel's excellent depiction of the loneliness that remain with all of us at some point in our lives. We also agreed on excellence of the writing. It is astonishing that a college girl was writing with such beautiful language and insight into poverty, pain and loneliness, and that she was writing in the late 1930s and knew so much about Hitler, Marxism, racism and the plight of mill workers.
There was little agreement, however, when it came to characters. Each of us reacted to the 5 main characters in different--sometimes vastly different--ways. Where I read Biff as a closeted gay man, others read an impotent man stuck in an unhappy marriage. Where some saw Dr. Copeland as a sympathetic character--an intelligent black man who had faced injustice his entire life and kept working for something higher--others were repelled by his anger and his cold relationship with his children.
Our discussion pointed out the beauty of the novel--complicated, well-developed characters. Each character was seen in a different light by the other characters, particularly in the case of the deaf-mute that they were all attracted to, Mr. Singer. Because he could not talk to them, they all showered their secrets and dreams and disappointments on him, and they projected their own idea of who he was onto him.
Mr. Singer himself is a dead-end Christ figure--a Jewish man who drew people to him, who was generous and kind, who was completely misunderstood by all of them. Yet his messianic presence is more pretense--he doesn't lead them to much in the end. The hunters seem to be on a spiritual hunt, which could sound like we're trying to read into it, since we are a church book club, yet McCullers herself throws Scripture in at critical moments. I don't mean to say that this book is somehow Christian in its arc, but we felt that it described a journey that all of us experience. As she has one character quote, "All men seek for Thee."
So now I'm reading my antidote to McCullers's book of missed connections and lives lived in isolation. In the Neighborhood by Peter Lovenheim chronicles a man's quest to get to know his neighbors. After many years lived on the same stately, affluent street, he realized that he really didn't know anyone living around him. In the wake of a murder-suicide just a few houses down that doesn't seem to affect many people, Lovenheim determines to learn about the people whose lives play out next door to his. He does this by interviews, and where possible, sleeping over at their houses. So far it's an interesting look behind the closed doors of the Joneses and everyone else.
One last item: my friend Laura highly recommends the novel Come Sunday by Isla Morley. I'd tell you what she said about it, but she told me in a Facebook chat message and there's no retrieving it! But if Laura liked it, it must be good.
We quickly came to agreement on the novel's excellent depiction of the loneliness that remain with all of us at some point in our lives. We also agreed on excellence of the writing. It is astonishing that a college girl was writing with such beautiful language and insight into poverty, pain and loneliness, and that she was writing in the late 1930s and knew so much about Hitler, Marxism, racism and the plight of mill workers.
There was little agreement, however, when it came to characters. Each of us reacted to the 5 main characters in different--sometimes vastly different--ways. Where I read Biff as a closeted gay man, others read an impotent man stuck in an unhappy marriage. Where some saw Dr. Copeland as a sympathetic character--an intelligent black man who had faced injustice his entire life and kept working for something higher--others were repelled by his anger and his cold relationship with his children.
Our discussion pointed out the beauty of the novel--complicated, well-developed characters. Each character was seen in a different light by the other characters, particularly in the case of the deaf-mute that they were all attracted to, Mr. Singer. Because he could not talk to them, they all showered their secrets and dreams and disappointments on him, and they projected their own idea of who he was onto him.
Mr. Singer himself is a dead-end Christ figure--a Jewish man who drew people to him, who was generous and kind, who was completely misunderstood by all of them. Yet his messianic presence is more pretense--he doesn't lead them to much in the end. The hunters seem to be on a spiritual hunt, which could sound like we're trying to read into it, since we are a church book club, yet McCullers herself throws Scripture in at critical moments. I don't mean to say that this book is somehow Christian in its arc, but we felt that it described a journey that all of us experience. As she has one character quote, "All men seek for Thee."
So now I'm reading my antidote to McCullers's book of missed connections and lives lived in isolation. In the Neighborhood by Peter Lovenheim chronicles a man's quest to get to know his neighbors. After many years lived on the same stately, affluent street, he realized that he really didn't know anyone living around him. In the wake of a murder-suicide just a few houses down that doesn't seem to affect many people, Lovenheim determines to learn about the people whose lives play out next door to his. He does this by interviews, and where possible, sleeping over at their houses. So far it's an interesting look behind the closed doors of the Joneses and everyone else.
One last item: my friend Laura highly recommends the novel Come Sunday by Isla Morley. I'd tell you what she said about it, but she told me in a Facebook chat message and there's no retrieving it! But if Laura liked it, it must be good.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Of Patriots and Protesters
If you are around my age (you can do the calculations in just a moment), you remember the 1976 bicentennial celebrations all around the U.S. on the 4th of July. I remember wearing my favorite off-white peasant blouse and cutoff jeans, riding my bike swathed in red, white and blue crepe paper. The excitement was palpable, and my chest burst with pride. My already patriotic town pulled out all the stops. I think I also remember fireworks laid out near a football field that blazed the shape and colors of the American flag. We knew we couldn't live any better place.
That was when I was 8, and blissfully unaware of the protests and unrest of the years not so far gone. The Vietnam War was still in my blind spot.
Eli the Good, by Silas House, is a young adult novel about a 10-year-old boy whose father, a Vietnam vet, begins to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder during the summer of the bicentennial. Eli is left trying to interpret the tension between his father and his aunt, who participated in anti-war protests. He has no idea what is changing his father so dramatically. His beautiful, loving mother spends herself trying to keep the peace. His older sister is angry for her own reasons.
Eli picks his way through the minefields, eavesdropping on everyone in an effort to understand the shift in his world. He takes and reads his father's letters from Vietnam. He is surrounded by people he loves and who love him, and none of them are who they should be.
One part of the novel that I particularly enjoyed was Eli's relationship with his best friend, Edie. Edie is tough and independent, and their bond is a strong one.
This book is certainly not written for a 10-year-old, because of its themes, even if the protagonist is 10. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it seems a bit too nostalgic for a young adult reader, but perhaps I'm wrong. I'm a little fuzzy on the audience.
If I get beyond that, however, it is a beautiful piece of writing. It interweaves wonderful, flawed people who are paying a price they do not understand, when all they wanted to do was the right thing. They walk the fine line between love and anger, and life threatens to split at the seams.
House is a nature lover, and the characters echo his love. He describes trees, light, and solitude in such a lovely way, just as he did in the novels for adults that I've read previously.
That was when I was 8, and blissfully unaware of the protests and unrest of the years not so far gone. The Vietnam War was still in my blind spot.
Eli the Good, by Silas House, is a young adult novel about a 10-year-old boy whose father, a Vietnam vet, begins to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder during the summer of the bicentennial. Eli is left trying to interpret the tension between his father and his aunt, who participated in anti-war protests. He has no idea what is changing his father so dramatically. His beautiful, loving mother spends herself trying to keep the peace. His older sister is angry for her own reasons.
Eli picks his way through the minefields, eavesdropping on everyone in an effort to understand the shift in his world. He takes and reads his father's letters from Vietnam. He is surrounded by people he loves and who love him, and none of them are who they should be.
One part of the novel that I particularly enjoyed was Eli's relationship with his best friend, Edie. Edie is tough and independent, and their bond is a strong one.
This book is certainly not written for a 10-year-old, because of its themes, even if the protagonist is 10. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it seems a bit too nostalgic for a young adult reader, but perhaps I'm wrong. I'm a little fuzzy on the audience.
If I get beyond that, however, it is a beautiful piece of writing. It interweaves wonderful, flawed people who are paying a price they do not understand, when all they wanted to do was the right thing. They walk the fine line between love and anger, and life threatens to split at the seams.
House is a nature lover, and the characters echo his love. He describes trees, light, and solitude in such a lovely way, just as he did in the novels for adults that I've read previously.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Lonely Hearts Club
Cold rain is falling and books are calling. So is my dishwasher--it wants to be emptied--but I am more faithful to books than I am to my kitchen.
This week I finished reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, which our church book club will be discussing in another week. As I mentioned before, my previously owned copy of this book has the signature of the previous owner, as well as the word "okay." I can only assume this is her evaluation of the book. As Barbara, a member of the Fab 5 Book Club, is famous for saying, "Classics are okay, if they're good."
You might think that it would be obvious to me that a book called The Heart is a Lonely Hunter would be a little more somber than, not quite as buoyant as, say, a book called The Heart Floats on Endless Happiness or some such thing. Still, I should've prepared myself more for this novel.
Published in 1940, when, according to my book, McCullers was 23 years old, this novel is full of unique characters, haunting writing, and well-described--you guessed it--loneliness. Each character suffers his or her own brand of isolation. The interesting thing about it is that you get to see what the characters think about themselves, what they think others think of them, and what others really think of them.
The novel is built around Mr. Singer, who is a deaf-mute man who attracts other isolated people. I particularly liked Mick, the restless girl heading into adolescence. I remember the feeling that I was ready to break out into the world, if only I could figure out how. It will be interesting to see what other people thought of the novel.
Currently I'm reading Eli the Good, a young adult novel by Silas House. I've read several of his novels for adults, and I heard him speak one time. I was impressed by him when he spoke--a gentle, thoughtful person--and my favorite novel of his so far is A Parchment of Leaves. He writes about characters who live in his own area of Kentucky mountains and coal mines.
I'm not far into Eli yet, but at this point it strikes me that the main character is retelling his tenth summer with a nostalgia that suits adults better than kids. That is only to say I'm not sure what kids would take from it, but I like it thus far.
Time to settle in with a warm blanket and a book. Sounds like the perfect Mother's Day to me!
This week I finished reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, which our church book club will be discussing in another week. As I mentioned before, my previously owned copy of this book has the signature of the previous owner, as well as the word "okay." I can only assume this is her evaluation of the book. As Barbara, a member of the Fab 5 Book Club, is famous for saying, "Classics are okay, if they're good."
You might think that it would be obvious to me that a book called The Heart is a Lonely Hunter would be a little more somber than, not quite as buoyant as, say, a book called The Heart Floats on Endless Happiness or some such thing. Still, I should've prepared myself more for this novel.
Published in 1940, when, according to my book, McCullers was 23 years old, this novel is full of unique characters, haunting writing, and well-described--you guessed it--loneliness. Each character suffers his or her own brand of isolation. The interesting thing about it is that you get to see what the characters think about themselves, what they think others think of them, and what others really think of them.
The novel is built around Mr. Singer, who is a deaf-mute man who attracts other isolated people. I particularly liked Mick, the restless girl heading into adolescence. I remember the feeling that I was ready to break out into the world, if only I could figure out how. It will be interesting to see what other people thought of the novel.
Currently I'm reading Eli the Good, a young adult novel by Silas House. I've read several of his novels for adults, and I heard him speak one time. I was impressed by him when he spoke--a gentle, thoughtful person--and my favorite novel of his so far is A Parchment of Leaves. He writes about characters who live in his own area of Kentucky mountains and coal mines.
I'm not far into Eli yet, but at this point it strikes me that the main character is retelling his tenth summer with a nostalgia that suits adults better than kids. That is only to say I'm not sure what kids would take from it, but I like it thus far.
Time to settle in with a warm blanket and a book. Sounds like the perfect Mother's Day to me!
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Have Books, Will Travel
As I've mentioned before in this space, when I travel, a portion of my luggage is devoted to the books I hope to read. My neighbor is a voracious reader, and she and her husband take off for weeks at a time on road trips. As they drive, she reads books that pertain to that place, getting the history and culture of the destination. Makes sense, right?
Clearly I am not a logical person. I can never seem to match up my reading with the place I'll be. In Vienna years ago, we visited places where Mozart and Freud had been. But one of my strongest memories is sitting in the laundromat, deeply absorbed in John Grisham's The Pelican Brief. In New York City, I was lost in Memoirs of a Geisha. A post-college backpacking trip of Western Europe found me with Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, two quintessential American novels. And during our year in Nigeria, I did manage to read a Nigerian novel (Things Fall Apart), but more memorable were The Thorn Birds and a string of Anne Tyler novels.
This summer, I'll be spending a week in Santa Fe, NM, and I am finally going to break this pattern. I pledge to finish Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather, and I want to try a Tony Hillerman mystery. What else should I be reading for Santa Fe? If you know, tell me.
While you consider that question, I'll be thinking about other appropriate book and travel combinations. Today, I'll start close to home with some of my favorite books set in or around Chicago:
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
So Big by Edna Ferber
The Blood of the Lamb by Peter De Vries
By the looks of most of this list, I have a thing for old-timey Chicago. Leave a comment if you know other books that should be added to this list.
On another topic, if you've been waiting with bated breath to learn what the East Grand Rapids library gives out to the grand prize winner of the book club drawing, wait no longer. Brian and I will soon be enjoying $50 with of date night at a local Gilmore restaurant. Whoo hoo!
Think it'd be okay if I took a book along?
Clearly I am not a logical person. I can never seem to match up my reading with the place I'll be. In Vienna years ago, we visited places where Mozart and Freud had been. But one of my strongest memories is sitting in the laundromat, deeply absorbed in John Grisham's The Pelican Brief. In New York City, I was lost in Memoirs of a Geisha. A post-college backpacking trip of Western Europe found me with Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, two quintessential American novels. And during our year in Nigeria, I did manage to read a Nigerian novel (Things Fall Apart), but more memorable were The Thorn Birds and a string of Anne Tyler novels.
This summer, I'll be spending a week in Santa Fe, NM, and I am finally going to break this pattern. I pledge to finish Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather, and I want to try a Tony Hillerman mystery. What else should I be reading for Santa Fe? If you know, tell me.
While you consider that question, I'll be thinking about other appropriate book and travel combinations. Today, I'll start close to home with some of my favorite books set in or around Chicago:
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
So Big by Edna Ferber
The Blood of the Lamb by Peter De Vries
By the looks of most of this list, I have a thing for old-timey Chicago. Leave a comment if you know other books that should be added to this list.
On another topic, if you've been waiting with bated breath to learn what the East Grand Rapids library gives out to the grand prize winner of the book club drawing, wait no longer. Brian and I will soon be enjoying $50 with of date night at a local Gilmore restaurant. Whoo hoo!
Think it'd be okay if I took a book along?
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